News, History, Writings, Observations & Various Ramblings Deep in the Heart of the Georgia Piedmont

20 February 2019

[Ellis Millspas] - A Day in the Life

I've been watching a lot of TV lately, movies on TCM, but mostly the continuing saga on cable TV as to how or if the republic will survive Donald Trump. This causes me to see a lot of commercials, many if not most about prescription medicine.

The people in these commercials seem almost proud of their afflictions, giving them cute and sometimes meaningless (to me) nicknames like hep C, DVT or PE, or “Afib not caused by a heart valve problem.” They make me almost wish I had these diseases. They seem so happy with their medication, finding romance, making new friends, riding bicycles, bonding with their families.

But then come the disclaimers which run along these lines:

Succedrin can make you batshit crazy. If you don't kill yourself, you may wish you had. Loss of limbs and vomiting up of internal organs have been reported. If any of these symptoms occur, stop taking Succedrin and seek medical attention immediately, but preferably not from the quack who prescribed this poison in the first place.

As to the programming, I watch it with the cranky English major’s eye. I'm struck by the number of educated people who pepper their conversation with trite redundancies such as’ each and every,’ “first and foremost,’ “in any way shape or form.’ Pick one dammit. They're all the same. I hear talking heads telling me “it's really clear.” One learns in law school, or should, never to say “clearly” or “it's clear.” in legal writing. You probably don't need to say it at all if it’s clear, but you certainly don't need to say” it's clear.” You're wasting the judge’s time.

As to the trending metaphors,” I'm old enough to remember”,”is big during the Trump era, intended comically to mean “before Trump.” ”Off the rails,” “the view from 30,000 feet,” “up(or down) the food chain,”and “moving the goalposts,” are coming on strong. Fading are”a perfect storm” and ‘jumping the shark.” Sorry Fonz.

But what's bothering me “at the end of the day” is that all this rain has given my beautiful broccoli crop root rot. I just ordered artichoke seed. I'll let you know how that goes.

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